What This Could Be- Joe Jonas Fanfic

Chapter 3: Ghosted

*Joe's POV*

There was an extra pep to my steps as I walked back in to my place. I left my now dirty shoes by the front door before tossing one of my favorite outfits in the wash, hoping I wouldn't ruin any article of clothing. The water spouted out of the showerhead as I turned the knob on the high side. Before stepping in the shower, I decided to take a look at myself in the bathroom mirror adjacent to it.

A patch of smeared dirt still remained on my cheek, along with a small scratch that was easily covered by my scruff, which I had planned to clean up before tomorrow. My eyes glared back at myself with a blank expression, slanting downwards at the ends which I was told it made them appear sad. My eyebrows needed trimming, although they were always pretty thick to begin with. I had let them do their thing this past year as my ex would normally maintain them for me. She called them spa nights. Plucking unwanted hairs off our faces and trimming the ones that stayed, popping pimples, applying face masks and finishing off with our nightly skin routines. That last one was something I still carried on with.

My mind kept on wandering with flashes of memories. Each one building up both sadness and anger as a unit. My ex was my biggest hype woman, but she also was my biggest critic. She always knew how to keep me humble if I dare showed any form of confidence within myself. At the time, I didn't see it as a bad thing. I could've had a big ego if it weren't for her. But on the hindsight, the person who I was became shoved down and limited. I let her change me, for better and for worse. I was tired of being a broken man just like our broken vows.

I quickly jumped into the shower to try to wash off all my thoughts about her, at least until my next therapy session. I couldn't let her continue to get in my head. She moved on, sooner than one should, but I needed to try too.

It didn't take me long to scrub all the dirt off me and put on a more laid-back pair of clothes— a black tank top and some gym shorts. I grabbed my phone and hit Nick's contact to FaceTime as I made my way to the kitchen.

Nick's face shortly appeared on screen, looking remorseful than ever, "Hey. Look, I'm sorry about earlier—"

"I have a date tomorrow," I blurted out, interrupting him mid-apology.

"What?" I could hear his finger hit his volume button as he got closer to the screen, unsure if it heard me correctly.

"Is it a bad idea? It's a bad idea, isn't it?" my brain started to ramble, "It's too soon, right? Do I even know how to date still? What if I forgot how to?"

"Joe," Nick snapped me out of my erratic questions, "It's not a bad idea, but you're going to have to give me more to go off of. Like, did you slide into someone's DMs after our...?" he moved his hands in a disordered motion, not knowing exactly what to call our last encounter.

I propped up my phone against the paper towel holder on the counter to be able to start loading the dishwasher up, freeing up the sink, "Our incomplete brunch? No. I mean, I did meet her after that, but not through DMs. Long story short, I almost died on this hidden trail and she just happened to also be there like an angel sent from heaven above."

His mouth twitched trying to hide a smile, "You almost died?"

"Do you not see this cut on my face?" I grabbed my phone and brought it close to my cheek to show the barely visible scratch before propping it back up on the counter, "Don't ruin this for me."

"Right," a laugh escaped from him, "Sorry. Keep going."

"After saving my life, she took me this park that you'd think was copy and pasted from those nature desktop backgrounds. Her name is Taylor," I continued, piling in the last few dishes, "and before you ask, no, she doesn't sing country music. I mean, I don't think so. It wasn't brought up."

"Because that definitely was going to be my next question," Nick retorted, "Have you decided where you're gonna take her?"

I closed the dishwasher after turning the sink off and wiped my hands on a tea towel, "I was hoping you'd have an idea. Do I take her to some fancy restaurant? That seems too cliché and unoriginal."

"But if it's a bust, you'll get food out of it," he attested.

I pointed my finger at him, "You've got a good point there, my friend." Making my way to the fridge, me now out of the camera's view, I opened it in disappointment as I stared at it still-empty, "Well, shit."

"What's up?"

Grabbing my phone and turning the camera to the inside of my fridge, I muttered, "I really did need to go to the grocery store."

"That's the saddest inside of a fridge I've ever seen," he commented, "Just use Instacart."

I slid our FaceTime to the side, pausing my side of the videocall, to pull up Instacart, "I'd be so lost without you." My body weight indented my mattress as I relaxed into it, selecting various foods and drinks to put in my cart.

"Just find the North Star and you'll be fine," he joked.

"Wait," my eyes widened, "You just gave me an idea." After hurriedly checking my cart out, I pulled up Taylor's contact number. I hit the message button before my fingers typed at lightning speed.

"I didn't say anything though."

"I gotta go," I scrolled our Facetime back into view after sending the text, "But I love you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'll keep you updated."

"You're welcome I guess?" he smiled, "Love you too. And good luck."

Antsy, I continued to look at my phone once Nick and I had hung up, hoping to get a reply soon. It said my text was delivered, but I had no idea if her read receipts were on until either it said so or when she would reply.

A few hours went by and nothing. It still said delivered. I assumed she didn't have her read receipts on at this point. Instead of overthinking that I was getting ghosted, I decided to try to sleep it off, praying that I would wake up to a reply.

She better had been joking about this three-day text wait.

Author's Note: Chapter Three and Four will go together in different POVs!